Posted
by
simoniker
on Monday November 17, 2003 @06:01PM
from the he-knows-kung-fu dept.

An anonymous reader writes "According to Eweek, Bill Gates' keynote speech at this year's Comdex showed Microsoft's 'focus on security, spam and [the] tablet PC', including a new version of its Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server, an extension of the SmartScreen Technology for spam prevention, and the next version of the Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system. But the showstopper was a filmed spoof of The Matrix (screencaps available here), with Gates and Steve Ballmer as Morpheus and Neo respectively, and including a jab at Linux."

Two boxes cracked in two years, that really is poor; it's disgusting that companies can get away with selling this rubbish. And it's all stolen from honest software houses like SCO, and then purposefully made insecure by Torvolds and his commie cronies, to undermine democracy.

a couple of years ago... should it be a compliment to Linux or an insult to your memory that you couldn't think of anything more recent than "a couple of years ago"...

How about last week... One of our competitors that pride themselves on being the best in the industry with Security and using Linux Servers as their flagship of security had about 100 customer's web servers root hacked.

Linux can be secure, but it just isn't as easy as the Open Source world tries to create. The Myth becomes so predominate that people install Linux and just assume that their computers are more secure, and hence never take into account updates, patches, or basic security measures.

People here simply saying that Linux is more secure is doing a DIS-service to the Linux and Open Source movement, as customers that do make the leap feel too comfortable with the 'myth of security' and then let their system get hacked right and left and flee Open Source and Linux after being burned.

Tell the truth, all systems are susceptible, no matter who makes it. All it takes is time and a smart mind to virtually get into anything.

Linux can be secure, but it just isn't as easy as the Open Source world tries to create. The Myth becomes so predominate that people install Linux and just assume that their computers are more secure, and hence never take into account updates, patches, or basic security measures....
Tell the truth, all systems are susceptible, no matter who makes it. All it takes is time and a smart mind to virtually get into anything.

There's a lot of truth to this. But it misses
the point that, if you try, it's much easier
to make Unix/Linux systems relatively secure, whereas
it's an uphill battle with Windoze. Until
recently, Microsoft gave the appearance that
they didn't even care very much how secure
their software was, regardless of whether the
customer cared or not.

You are correct in that this is almost
a side issue, given that it is not easy on
any system, and most people don't try hard
enough on any system.

There's a lot of truth to this. But it misses the point that, if you try, it's much easier to make Unix/Linux systems relatively secure, whereas it's an uphill battle with Windoze. Until recently, Microsoft gave the appearance that they didn't even care very much how secure their software was, regardless of whether the customer cared or not.

I'm actually sorry, but I have to disagree with this.

Dropping in a Windows 2003 server or even a Windows 2000 server, applying the initial SP and patches available (

I use a net-connected Linux machine that offers several non-trivial public services. Its uptime currently stands at a bit over 400 days.

(Yes, particular daemons have been upgraded, but using straightforward Unix techniques there was zero interruption to service.)

During the last 400 days, there have been many times when we've had to take internal NT servers down to install service packs. Probably about six times that I recall, although I may have supressed the memory of the others... And these Windows machines are not even exposed to the internet, they're just at risk from worms and similar crap on a private network.

"Would you like to restart your computer now?"

"Why yes, of course, it's not like I was actually using the machine for anything!"

There are anecdotes in favor of either system but the simple fact is there is no security-critical Windows machine with an uptime of more than a couple of months, since service packs invariably require a reboot. I think that ought to tell us something.

And this is to say nothing of the outright bastardry of making people sign a new licence agreement to get a critical security fix.

There are anecdotes in favor of either system but the simple fact is there is no security-critical Windows machine with an uptime of more than a couple of months, since service packs invariably require a reboot. I think that ought to tell us something.

We have clients with closed systems that have run for over 600 days on NT4 servers back in 1997/1998.

However, rebooting is not a good thing for service packs and updates, I agree completely.

I use a net-connected Linux machine that offers several non-trivial public services. Its uptime currently stands at a bit over 400 days.

You should schedule some downtime for that machine. If you don't cold-boot your machines periodically (once a year is a good rule of thumb), you may find after the next power outage that they don't boot anymore (generally because a dying disk is willing to continue to spin long after it's decided never to spin up again).

Dropping in a Windows 2003 server or even a Windows 2000 server, applying the initial SP and patches available (which are downloaded during the setup even), set it for auto update,

And I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with this.

Turning on auto update on a production server is a good way to lose one's job. I can't tell you how many times I've seen things break when a new MS patch or service pack is applied. So when a new MS patch comes out, we can't patch immediately, since we have no idea what that p

Nope, it should be as simple as gaining root on an unpatched Lunix box, like it happened to open source icons SourceForge and VIA a coupla years ago. Remember?

And while we're playing at "famous compromises", we can't forget the Microsoft corporate compromises [theregister.co.uk] either. Not that I would want to mimic your smug tone nor intrude on your own zealotry.

Yep. The origional Fluffy Bunny rant. You can still find mirrors [webster.edu] of the origional defaced page (complete with cute graphics and the above rant). The rant itself shows up in Slashdot archives and Google Groups often enough.

Agent Gates: I hate this place. This GNU. This open source. This license, whatever you want to call it. I can't stand it any longer. It's the free software, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your GPL. And every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.

Actually, I think ol' Bill looks eerily like Cigarette Smoking Man from X-Files, with those glasses. I think a counter-spoof against Microsoft would be quite in order. The MS-SCO connection, aliens trying to undermine society and technology by force-feeding the world substandard software with draconian EULAs.

Bill Gates delivered a keynote speech on Sunday evening to open COMDEX [microsoft.com], as he has done for the last 20 years. Interesting parts of his security-heavy speech include Microsoft's research budget, with Gates saying that this year Microsoft 'will spend $6.8 billion in R&D, that's double what we spent five years ago;' admitting that tools which scan for stack or buffer overruns and other security problems 'are tools that we're not applying in our development process;' that security is 'certainly the largest thing that we're doing;' but waffled on security/patch management with this statement: 'Now, to really provide security, the software has to be kept up to date and the software updates have to be clearly partitioned so that things that are just optional and new features are kept separate from the hopefully increasingly rare updates that relate to security issues that have really thoroughly been checked to make sure they won't cause any regression.' Gates continued on about Trustworthy Computing, security, spam, firewalls, policy controls, XML, 'Seamless Computing' and the long-delayed Longhorn. There was also a parody of the Matrix starring Bill Gates as Morpheus and Steve Ballmer as Neo, with the Matrix represented by Linux-selling IBM consultants and the Real World as Windows-based. You can read the full text of Bill Gates' speech [microsoft.com] from COMDEX [comdex.com] (with demos from three other Microsofties) or view the entire presentation online [microsoft.com] (56kbps low [cwusa.tv] | 100 kbps med [cwusa.tv] | 300 kbps high [cwusa.tv]) for the next week. A warning though: the speech is over an hour long.

You don't speak for me. I think this is great. Why? Because it means Linux has finally entered the collective consciousness.

What the fuck am I talking about? Parody only works when the audience knows exactly what you're talking about with just the subtlest hints. The spoof didn't need to spell out what Linux is. It was assumed knowledge. Microsoft assumed that the audience knew that Larry Ewing's Tux logo is the Linux mascot, that the audience knew what Linux is and what Linux does, that the audience knew that Linux is competing with Microsoft, and so on.

It is great news that Microsoft acknowledges Linux in this way. It shows that Linux has become big enough to not just attract attention from Microsoft (the Halloween documents demonstrated that) but that everybody in the computing industry is expected to know about Linux by now.

Woohoo. I still remember when this site was called Chips and Dips. I remember the cheering and stomping of feet when the first paper magazine ran an article on Linux. Now Linux inspires spoofs from one of the world's biggest software companies! This is a great day for Linux.

How many times can Bill get on stage, claim that "Microsoft is refocusing its effors into security", and be believable? I mean, they supposedly shifted all these resources into fixing the holes in Windows, and, well, we all know how well THAT went. Now we're supposed to roll over, forget about that, and say, "Oh, okay. He means it this time. I believe him."?

Because Debian holds itself responsible for all of the packages that comprise the distribution, which by now has already exceeded the 10000 (ten thousand) packages mark, whereas Microsoft is only responsible for the security of its own barebones operating system and whichever other products it sells, like its Office suice.

Then the glitches would be a featureAgent Smith would need to be updated ever 2 weeks to avoid the latest expolit which would allow Neo to destroy himIt would have to be rebooted every month to free up the memory leaks

Actually, that doesn't sound too different from the movie plot. Agent Smith obviously hadn't been patched because Neo exploited him immediately upon gaining Administrator access. And we learned that the Matrix must be "reloaded" periodically to fix the humans that "leak" from the main program...

Actually, it's pretty typical for company meetings to feature a video like this one. Those are for internal consumption only, though, as they tend to bash pretty much everybody. They're almost always humorous, and occasionally absolutely hysterical.

I never understood that about the Borg. Presumably they would have assimilated *some* marketing staff over the years, enabling them to come up with a better slogan than "Resistance is Futile"... perhaps "Assimilation makes you fresh and sexually appealing, while saving money on long distance!"

So very, very wrong that I cannot begin to fathom just how craptastically crappy this crap is.

Imagine. Using a popular culture movie to debase your competition and promote your crappy vaporware. Where do I sign up for this crap? I want off your lists. All of them. And your parent company lists too. No, don't try and sell me your product by linking it to a popular movie reference, please. Let it stand on it's own merit. Oh, you say it's all smoke and mirrors and you don't have the features I want? Too bad, no money for you, bye now.

I imagined more sweat - like with all that rain coming down at the end for Ballmer....

And the innovation pill? I have some explanations...- It's a placebo.- You can only take the pill after reading the EULA that's was in the package.- The package itself is flawed and tampered with because some script kiddie got into it first.- The pill would advertize for other pills, mostly blue and purple.... there is nothing more pathetic that seeing two overly rich CEO's attempt to hip themselves up to pop culture. I'll take my glasses-half-full 401K presentations, my Initech pep rallies, and all that other crap over this. Nice to know that part of the war chest is going towards craptastic special effects and parody instead of, I don't know, hiring some cheap labor to look for buffer overflows.

I mean come on!!! A more appropriate spoof would be that those two were the virus version Smith (crikey, I'm writing this now and listening to the Animatrix OST and Red Pill Blue Pill is on!!!)... yeah Longhorn would have to be the Matrix code, constraining humanity and the problem is choice: which MS don't want people to have.

Plus, the Matrix is due for a critical crash, hmm the parrallels are endless...

I wonder why all of the Microsofties post anonymously? Could it be they are embarassed about the sheer absurdity of supporting such a wrong approach - both morally as well as technically? Perhaps mister/miss 'anonymous' can answer that for us...

It's even more interesting that they show a supposed Linux laptop displaying a Windows style error message with non-sensical text. So

1) to make linux look bad they need to make it look like Windows.

2) they can't even come up with a common error message in Linux that people actually see (because those kind of of errors get fixed in Linux). Unlike say:

"The driver for the display device got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly. Please check with your display device vendor for any driver updates. "

The last two Windows XP laptops I've used got this BSOD error with different video cards and up to date drivers, although usually they just froze up and quit working entirely. Under Linux, this problem "with the device" or "driver" disappeared.

If Linux is the Matrix, and Windows is the rebel humans fighting back... would Slashdot be the Merovingian, the supreme trafficker of information hoping to know all that it can and in the mean time falling short of disguising its favoring Linux?

(DP)After regaining my composure, I realized their take on the Matrix was all wrong. The horse suppository sized pill was mis-marked, should have been the Windows pill. It should have gone in the other end, after Balmer, timidly pointing to the small Linux pill, finally submits - smiling and whistling a show tune. - Vin Dozier, Las Vegas

This was just feeding dog food to the dogs - nothing more, nothing less.

Most people here seem to hate that spoof, and it seems just because it's MicroSoft making fun out of Linux.

I really hate MicroSoft, and I really love Linux. But I have to admit that this spoof has style. I mean, it's normal for MicroSoft to bash Linux, but this time they're doing it with style, and I find it very funny.

It's not good to take everything serious, and while I really hate MS, billg and Monkeyboy this spoof really is funny, IMHO. It's childish to say it's bad just because it's MS bashing Linux. If it were Linus and Alan Cox doing that very same video, bashing MicroSoft, everyone would praise it as the best piece of humor in IT ever...

The irony is that Linux still has a very small market share, but Billy's response to Linux in this spoof, by linking it to IBM, tends to make Linux even bigger than it is, and makes it look like it is more competition than it is yet.

As someone who has been in marketing for 20 years now, I know the best way to make your competition look small is ignore them in public, and sweat them in private. This is just petty crapola by Billy and Company, but it serves to make MS look bad, and Linux to look better by being the butt of a joke made by "the evil empire". I mean, the method they used to parody Linux is fine, even remotely humorous, but doesn't serve their marketing dept. very well.

Seriously, this may sound odd to some of you, but this is a fundamental marketing mistake, this is Marketing 201 stuff, not that advanced. This is typical of a company that thinks it is invincible, or thinks the competition can never catch up. Problem is, no one else believes this except Billy and Co.

Maybe they aren't considering Linux a serious threat yet, but rather maneuvering to gain the appearance of a competitive marketplace. I will bet in another year or so they'll really start to bemoan Linux and how its tearing the market away from them, all the while working carefully to make sure that it is never taken seriously enough to gain dominance. Seems like a fine strategy. Let [submit 3rd world market here] convert to Linux, their poor, rich governments will continue to use what they believe to be th

I haven't seen the full flick (just some still shots) but I think this does end up being some simple marketing strategy.

Microsoft can't simply ignore Linux. If they don't satisfy current customers curiousity with their own statements regarding the competition, the customers will go out and do their own research. Doing a head-to-head comparison doesn't work very well.. so what are they going to do? Tout that Windows is more secure? more reliable? more portable? more accessible? less bloated? cheaper?

UNIX: A rough implementation of Multics, written expressly so that Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie could port a game called Space Travel to old, cheap hardware.

Who's got new ideas now?

Please mod parent back down to normal. He has a
highly misleading
view of history that has been modded up to +3.

Misleading item #1: "Linux is a clone of Minux,
itself a clone of Unix". Completely incorrect,
although seemingly-plausible to newbies due
to the historical association of these things.

I evaluated Minix back when it was hot stuff, and
I rejected it precisely because it was not
a clone of Unix. It was a toy version of
Unix. If it had been a good clone, I would have
used it, no problem.

A few years later, I evaluated Linux. It was
not a toy version of either Minix nor
Unix, it was a true clone of Unix. So I started
using it.

Now, ok, Linux was a true clone of Unix back then,
this much is true (although not quite what the poster
said), and hence yes, Linux back then was not a new
idea.

But so what? The point is that it was a FREELY
AVAILABLE, OPEN SOURCE clone of Unix --
which is exactly what millions of us were waiting
for. Minix wasn't real Unix...BSD was, but wasn't
freely available back then...Linux was a god send.

Misleading item #2: "UNIX: A rough implementation of Multics, written expressly so that Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie could port a game called Space Travel to old, cheap hardware."

No, Unix is not any kind of version of Multics, that
is just plain wrong. Sure, it borrowed a few ideas;
the Unix authors were involved in authoring Multics,
so surely that is no surprise. But "a version of"?
No. Wrong. Completely wrong.

As for "Written so that...Space Travel..." could run
on some platform? Sure, that's part of the
history...so what? The question is, what did they
come up with as a result?

The parent post is a cynical, distorted view
of history that is grinding an axe to achieve
an agenda. Please mod it back down to a normal +1
opinion. It is NOT
insightful nor informative.

You are looking at everything big picture. Great, but the devil is in the details. Saying that microsoft isn't an innovator is like saying that berkley doesn't do Physics. Its the small gradual improvements that make great ideas into great products.

Some of you may not be aware of this, but at one point (20-25 years ago) Microsoft was seen as the little guy, fighting against the big, powerful, market-dominating, innovation-stifling IBM. Remind anyone of a certain penguin?

Microsoft has turned into everything they used to be against (and sometimes worse). Kinda reminds me of what happens to revolutionaries in the political world. Let's just hope Linus' ego can be kept in check:)

Uh. What? Microsoft has ALWAYS been an innovation-stifling, will fuck for money, back stabbing company. This whole thing started when Bill G got laughed out of the homebrew computer club for throwing a hissy fit over how people were copying his version of basic.

This whole thing started when Bill G got laughed out of the homebrew computer club for throwing a hissy fit over how people were copying his version of basic.

This is true (and Bill did some dumpster diving to get BASIC), but the OP also has a valid point. When I built my first PC clone, I went to a *software boutique* and tried to buy a copy of MS DOS. (Anyone else remember PC software being so trendy that you had to go to a boutique to buy it?) It wasn't for sale, and they just laughed at me. You didn't *buy* DOS, you just *got it*, nudge, wink, get it? And MicroSoft didn't seem to mind it at all. Try doing that now.

At least you were original [penny-arcade.com]... oh, wait--nevermind. You were just another imitator. Please, world, I beg of you: bite styles wantonly and give credit never! That's the only way for culture to survive!